Sunday 26 August 1660

(Lord’s day). With Sir W. Pen to the parish church, where we are placed in the highest pew of all, where a stranger preached a dry and tedious long sermon. Dined at home. To church again in the afternoon with my wife; in the garden and on the leads at night, and so to supper and to bed.

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Somehow Wheatley got the last two sentences of this short entry confusedPer L&M: "Dined at home, and with my wife to church again in the afternoon. Home again and walked in the garden and on the leads till night; and so to supper and to bed."

This week Pepys gets the best seat, but the sermon is dry! It would appear morning service is men dominated. Pepys always mentions accompanying Elizabeth to service in the afternoons. It seems a lazy August day...

"On the leads". I didn't know that this practise went so far back. I remember people sitting on the flat parts of their roofs in the evening, away from the noise and bustle of what was going on down below.

Oh! well! stargazing! 'tis better to watch the skulls(on the river even tho it's their day off) than to be driven out of one's skull, by a nice boring sermon.(still better than being on the tyles, being a wee good laddy, no nice bonnets to admire)

Nice to see Samuel getting the benefit of the carpenter's work of 18 July, when the "door to the leads" was built. These roofplace 'retreats' are very much in evidence all over the place in the City...but usually these days with a garden. Next to the Tower Gateway 'Docklands's Light Railway' station is a roofplace bowling green; bit of a surprise when you first see it!

‘lead, n. Pronunciation: /lɛd/ . Etym: Old English léad . . 1. a. The heaviest of the base metals, of a dull pale bluish-gray colour, fusible at a low temperature, and very useful from its softness and malleability. Chemical symbol Pb . . . . 7. pl. a. The sheets or strips of lead used to cover a roof; often collect. for a lead flat, a lead roof . .1578–9 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 538 Mending the leddes over the librarie chambers. . .1625 Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 261 A Goodly Leads upon the Top, railed with Statua's interposed. . . 1761 C. Johnstone Chrysal (ed. 2) I. ii. xviii. 231 A cat..whom she used to meet in the evenings, upon the leads of the house . . ‘